Weno gente, pues por fin el ente corralesco me envió el articulillo en
cuestión sobre la histeria del MSX en essspañavabien. Aquà os lo
forguarreo a fin y efecto de que le echeis un ojo y vomiteis cuantas
correcciones y aportaciones querais. Tened en cuenta que esto debe estar
enviado a destino el JUEVES 31. AsÃn que hala, los que quieran pasar a
la historia, bla bla...
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El Konamimancio
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The MSX system appeared in the computing scene of Spain in 1985, Philips was
the first company
which introduced MSX on the european market. The first public exhibition was in
the SIMO fair
(Madrid) and Informat (Barcelona), the expectation was high and there were a
lot of discussions
regarding the compatibility issues.
Big stores called "El Corte Ingles" started to sell MSX computers in Christmas
1985, maybe too
late because another 8 bits home computers were introduced since one or two
years ago.
The "best seller" MSX machines were from Sony and Philips, Philips dominated
the european
market without doubts, but Sony was always the main competence for Philips,
between them they
had about 75-85% of the spanish computing MSX market. There were also a famous
companies that
sold MSX machines with success, like Toshiba and SVI, the most famous models
were SVI 728 from
Spectravideo (distribuited under Indescomp spanish company), Canon V20 and
Toshiba HX-10. The
rest of the marks were non successful, that´s the cause of the abandon of
several companies
such as Dynadata (the spanish mark for Daewoo), Piooner, Sharp, and much more
got out from the
spanish MSX market afther the failed MSX-1 "experiment".
Even there was a 100% spanish MSX computer developed under the spanish company,
Dragon, only
500 units were sold, so it´s a collectors loved machine.
Apart from all the hardware made in Japan and Netherlands (Philips), there were
some hardware
made in Spain, diskdrives from Indescomp, MSX-SVI adaptor (for making fully
compatible the old
SVI computers with MSX standard),Memory expansions from several independent
hardware developers.
The hardware prices were too high comparing with another computers like
Spectrum, during those
years japanese "yen" and spanish "peseta" were equivallent. The price for a
typical MSX-1
without extras was 69.500 (Toshiba HX-10, Philips VG8020), a normal single side
diskdrive
costed about 40.000-50.000 pts. The typical MSX cartridges had a price of about
4.000-6.000 pts.
Spain produced a lot of commercial software productions for MSX and MSX-2,
during the first
years Opera Soft, Dinamic and Topo Soft for example made very good games, using
the special
features of the MSX system (VDP, PSG...),Abu Simbel Profanation
(Dinamic),Phantomas (Topo) and
Goody (Opera) were good examples of such good entertainment
software.Professional software
was also avaliable under spanish software companies,Ease was a complete home
office system for
MSX-2 computers,made by Opera soft in clear competence agaisnt the Egos from
Sony.
After the golden years, spanish software decreased the quality with the
introduction of several
cross code conversors, so programmers prefered to use conversions from Spectrum
versions, due
this issue the spanish users started to get angry with the european software
productors, many
conversions were not fully compatible with MSX-2. The production of
entertainment software for
MSX-2 was very low, and there were only a few conversions made by Opera Soft of
their games.
Idealogic was one of the rare companies which produced some spanish games for
MSX-2 during the
commercial years, distribuited under Philips seal.
What about MSX Magazines in Spain?, there were a lot of stupid and oportunistic
magazines during
1985-1986, with no success of course because they only wanted to make bussines
as soon as
possible,offering poor quality productions. Meanwhile the first spanish MSX
magazine: "MSX
Extra" appeared as soon as the first MSX computers were sold, during 1985. "MSX
Magazine" was the
most professional spanish magazine,there is no relation between the japanase
one and this one.
Spanish "MSX Magazine" started its history in May 1985,just after Sonimag
(computer fair of
Barcelona),at the same time the most famous and loved magazine: "MSX Club" had
the first number
in the bookstores of Spain, one year later a great quality magazine appeared in
the MSX scene
of Spain, its name was "Input MSX",but we could only enjoy this magazine during
two and a half
years, December, 1998 was the last month for "Input MSX". "MSX Magazine" was
the first magazine
which abandoned in June of 1987.In 1989 only MSX Club continued offering a
monthly magazine to
all the spanish MSX users, MSX Extra was produced by the same editors of "MSX
Club", and they
decided to eliminate MSX Extra, there was not enough space for the two
publications.
Finally "MSX Club" closed the magazine at December, 1991,this was the final for
the commercial
MSX scene in Spain because the last spanish MSX games were made during this
year.
There were some tape MSX magazines, but they were unsucessful and the tapes had
not enought
quality to justify the 500 pts you had to pay for them, the most famous tape
magazine for MSX
was "Data MSX", made by Geasa.These tape magazines used to have some BASIC
games and no more.
The "official" or big commercial piracy was very rare in Spain, only some flea
markets
distribuited bad quality copies of several games (specially from Konami) with
B/W papers and
bad recorded tapes. Curiosly the piracy was increased rapidly after the
commercial years of
MSX,a lot of people could buy diskdrives or MSX-2 with FDD and then they bought
ROM converted
games in disk format. But Spain was always far from Brazil in the piracy
subject.
The MSX was the second home computer system after Spectrum, estimations can
afirm that during
the heydays about 200.000 users could enjoy with MSX.
MSX was very successful in Spain, why the hardware firms retreated from the
spanish market?,
there is a simple answer, the spanish pie was very small, the difference
between MSX and
Spectrum is in the number of companies who developed both systems,MSX was a
standard, so
many marks could develop MSX computers, and the were not enough customers for
the companies
targets.In 1989 the last MSX models were sold in Spain,Philips was the last
company with
presence in Spain,but suddenly in 1990 all the commercial hardwared
dissapeared, including
the support to a large amount of MSX users who felt very bad with this decision.
Sony and Philips are the most common computers in the current years,but
fortunately many people
could buy a MSX Turbo-R during these last five years, so between active users
is very common to
own at least a MSX-2+. The top ten of MSX models has the next computers: 1-
Philips NMS 8245,
2- Sony F-700, 3- Philips NMS 8250, 4- Panasonic A1-ST, 5- Panasonic A1-GT, 6-
Sanyo
Wavy 70FD, 7- Philips VG 8235, 8- Philips NMS 8280, 9- Sony F1 XDJ, 10-
Panasonic A1-WX.
There was a sad year, 1992 was the "final" for the MSX system in Spain, "MSX
Club" magazine
stopped and many people abandoned the MSX when they did not feel the support of
the commercial
companies, no magazines, no games, no hardware, it was hard to continue using
the MSX. We
know that many MSX users started to make associations and clubs, and the MSX
meetings raised
very soon.
-------------------- NON COMERCIAL PART
December, 1991, just before Barcelona olympic games, that was the end of the
commercial age of
the MSX in Spain,the last commercial magazine: "MSX Club" stopped the
production without
previous advertisement,it was a hard hit to our MSX hearts.The last MSX
conversions were made
during this year, bad games like Smaily (Zigurat game about the incoming
olympic games) or North
& South were developed.
1992 was one of the worst years for the MSX, people were confused and hundred
of users changed
to videoconsoles or clone PCs. Fortunately some users decided to work together
for maintaining
the MSX alive and some old little MSX clubs appeared in the scene as the most
important things
for our system.
Club Hnostar made the first MSX fanzine after the end of MSX Club,at the first
years it was only
a B/W amateur paper with some information, but with the years it was improved
till July, 2000,
when the last number was released with an incredible quality, full colour
bright covers, high
resolution B/W pages and A4 format. Currently there are three fanzines
avaliable for the MSX
users: Moai Magazine (A3,colour covers), SD MeSXes (A3, laser) and MSX Lehenak
(colour covers,
A3).
During the non comercial years some MSX fairs and meetings has raised over the
MSX scene, the
oldest one was Barcelona, with plus than twenty editions this is the most
visited fair of Spain,
some years got about 250 visitors. The first Barcelona fair was made in 1992
(CORRIJE ESTO NESTOR
PORQUE NO ESTOY SEGURO). The second MSX fair of Spain in importance is MadriSX,
a MSX fair of
Madrid, capital of Spain, since 1994 this fair is held for all the spanish
users due the
geographical situation of Madrid and the relevance of the city in the european
comunitacions,
so this is the most visited fair by the foreigner users.
There was only three editions of a MSX party made in Cartagena (Murcia),but the
organization
finished their work and it dissapeared.
The software released during the non comercial years has been very good,
probably better than
in the commercial years, games like KPI Ball, Sonyc, Bubble Rain, and some
translations of famous
japanese games appeared for making delicious moments with our old MSX. The non
entertainment
software released for MSX during the non commercial years was so good and it
let our MSX to be
connected to BBS (QWK and Blue Wave),Internet (Internestor) and more useful
programs for
design and much more.
The number released hardware in Spain during these non commercial years was
big. Leonardo Padial
is the main hardware developer of Spain, famous projects like Z380 board or
MMSX project were
designed under his hands. Spain has developed a lot of hardware like memory
expansions, VDP
boards, CPU boards, slotexpanders, kits, FDD controllers, SCSI interfaces
,etc... Apart from
Padial, Angel Culla made some cheap hardware with good quality.
Spain has a good MSX support, many MSX Clubs distribuited over whole Spain
offers support for
the MSX users and developers, this is the current list of active groups:
Galicia -> Club Hnostar
Basque Country -> VAJ Club
Madrid -> MSX Power Replay
Barcelona -> Asociacion Amigos del MSX
Baleares -> Club Mesxes
There are also more groups making magazines, hardware or software, even single
developers are
important:
Castilla y Leon -> Daniel Zorita and Marcos Vega Coso (software)
Cantabria -> Manuel Pazos (software)
Barcelona -> Moai Tech (magazine and software)
Bueno, tengo que hacer la maleta, creo que más o menos ya puedes terminar lo
que resta,
básicamente es la historia que todos conocemos. Un saludo
[Se han eliminado los trozos de este mensaje que no contenÃan texto]
